Julian Bonequi
ANTAGONÍA. VR Chamber Opera, 2016-2018
VR experience for Oculus Rift
The story of Antagony [VR Chamber Opera] by Bonequi takes place in a hallucinogenic and strange version of the planet Mars where the only inhabitant — a geneticist on a special mission— receives the news of the end of the world as the last communication with planet Earth. He accelerates the results of his investigation to “save the future of humanity” mixing his own DNA with minerals, plants, and animals via mycosis. As a sole individual, he lacks collective understanding of humanity and society. He wanders between the nothingness of nihilism and the edges of the precipice of posthumanist deception in the search for clarity, experimental metaphysics, and our creative capacities as thinking beasts. The VR piece is a ritualistic immersive view of his last dreams before death. The story resembles the failure of a society full of ideologies that never correspond to references of reality but only to imaginary obsessions of control. This antagony entails inhuman values of empowered entities that lead into destructive and vile decisions accepted by a great majority, often in the name of acquisition and money. Manipulation of history eroding memory and motivating the never-ending list of unlisted genocides is an example. The contrast between human intelligence and the absence of collective consciousness as individuals and dysfunctional societies inspires the music composed and interpreted by Bonequi as well as the whole VR composition.
Support Program for Production and Research in Arts and Media 2016. National Center for the Arts, Mexico City.
Duration: 19:30 min. (7 scenes, 3 movements)
Oculus Rift with two sensors
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VIDEO LINK
ABOUT THE ARTIST
JULIAN BONEQUI (Mexico, 1974). Hybrid artist and composer. As founder and director of Audition Records [2010], Bonequi has published an important experimental art collection with more than 120 international releases and has collaborated as guest curator with Salon Bruit Berlin, Akouphène Festival of Geneva, Ex Teresa Arte Actual Museum and CCDRadio in Mexico. At the latter he worked in research groups about interactive technologies, mixed reality and neuroscience for educational exhibitions. Winner of the CTM Radio Lab Berlin in 2017 in collaboration with Deutschlandradio Kultur. Support Program for Media Research and Art Production PAPIAM 2016. Resident artist of the Laboratory of Immersion and Mixed Realities in its 2018 edition commissioned by BBVA Bancomer Foundation. As 3D researcher and professor, Bonequi studied Art and Design in the Master of Video Games (2008-2009) and in the Master of Animation at Pompeu Fabra University (2006-2007); Advanced Animation at CEV Madrid (2004-2006); Studies of Photography (2002-2004) and Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1995-1997). In 2015 his music was launched into space as part of the Australian project Forever Now. Currently he is Member of the National System of Art Creators based in Mexico City.
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